Republican idiocy

And the forehead smacks continue:

NCCapitol 4:52pm via Web
Former Rep. Dale Folwell, R-Forsyth, to lead Employment Security under Sec. Sharon Decker. #ncga #ncpol

This is beginning to look like a sitcom or a really irritating reality show. You hate children? How about a job running a day-care center! Can't swim? Lifeguard! Allergic to peanuts? A taste-tester at a nut-cluster factory! (Yes, there is such a place, I saw it on PBS the other day). You are ideologically opposed to laid-off workers receiving unemployment benefits? You can run the Employment Security Commission!

Anti-government sabre-rattling:

JohnLockeNC 8:16am via HootSuite
JLF's @jonpsanders urges N.C. legislators to retake REINS in dealing with major state rules. #ConsNC #ncga #ncpol ow.ly/iO27j

Short version: even after two years of Legislative power-grabbing, the skeletal remnants of agencies in the Executive branch are still breathing and making decisions on their own. This must not stand.

A bright candle in an otherwise dark room:

We led the nation in clean energy and clean transportation jobs in the 4th quarter of 2012, and came in second only to California for the year as a whole. The 10,800 new clean energy & transportation jobs E2 tracked here in 2012 are some of the more than 21,000 clean energy & transportation jobs that have sprung up across the state in the last five years. These are good-paying jobs in fields like public transportation, solar and wind farms, electric vehicle charging stations, and solar and wind power manufacturing.

These jobs didn't just magically appear. It took cooperation and vision and hard work, with a constant eye towards the future. Unfortunately, there are some who would ignore such evidence and take us back in time:

We'll start with some soothing words to unruffle feathers:

ACLU_NC 10:22am via Web .@RepDavidRLewis: "We understand there are some orgs who are going to be opposed to voter ID on principle.And we respect that." #ncga #ncpol

Yeah, well. It's nice to talk about respecting others, but the real test comes when they speak, and you either tune them out or actually listen. So far, the only people the NC GOP has listened to are temper-tantrum-throwing self-appointed hall-monitors who brandish poorly-researched fallacy-laced "evidence" of a problem that exists in such small numbers it takes an electron microscope to discover them. On a positive note, I'm pretty sure I used up all my extra hyphens on that second sentence. That's worth like fifty points, right?

Spreading the goodness all around:

Now state lawmakers who want to turn North Carolina into the nation’s next fracking hotspot are reopening the case for injecting brines and toxins deep underground. This time, the proposal is shifting the fracking debate from the center of the state, where the energy exploration and economic benefits would occur, to tourism-dependent coastal communities where the disposal wells would have to be drilled.

Not only would these coastal communities be dealing with wastes that another region made money from, it's likely that frack water from other states would end up there, as the drilling companies are struggling to find outlets for the hundreds of millions of gallons they've already produced. And in this issue we do have some experience:

Back to the basics of miscommunications:

In the age of texting, tweeting and other technological ways of communicating, North Carolina’s elementary school students could soon have to master a more old-fashioned craft: writing in cursive. “Every child should know cursive,” said state Rep. Pat Hurley, an Asheboro Republican and a primary sponsor of the bill. “Our children can’t write a simple sentence. They think printing their name is their signature.”

I have yet to read a hand-written note in cursive that didn't have at least one inscrutable word in it. You know why they call it cursive, right? Because when you come back from the store and you've got gorgonzola instead of garbanzo, it's not the note writer who has to run back to the store, it's the note reader. And he or she will be cursing all the way to and from said store, with maybe a little sotto voce grumbling at the beans themselves. Which they don't deserve, but that's what happens when unnecessary confusion arises.

It must be difficult to find so many people unsuited for their new jobs:

Randy H. Dishong was hired Monday as chief enforcer of the state’s car inspection and registration laws. The next day, he had to take care of an inspection and registration problem with his own car. DOT and DMV officials did not respond to requests for comment about Dishong’s fitness to oversee state enforcement of car registration laws. Beaty said the agency would not provide details about his car, including how long ago the registration had expired.

Again, vetting. I'm sure many Republicans will look at this and say, "No big deal." And in doing so, they will fail to grasp the larger point: how can you expect performance and efficiencies from an administration that keeps making such poor selections for leadership posts?